Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Law and Order More Female Visitors Allege CCA Strip-Searches to Prove They Were Menstruating
Posted By Steven Hale on Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 12:50 PM
Two more women who were visiting a Corrections Corp. of America facility in Tennessee have joined a federal lawsuit against the Nashville-based private prison operator, alleging that guards at the CCA facility strip-searched them to verify that they were menstruating.
One of the women was allegedly required to expose herself to a guard for a search conducted in front of her three children.
You can read the full amended complaint here.
The two women — and three children, included in the suit on grounds of emotional distress and false imprisonment — join a lawsuit filed by attorneys at Ozment Law last month. None of the plaintiffs are identified by name. In the suit, a woman alleges that she was strip-searched by CCA guards, who said they needed to "verify" that she was indeed menstruating after they spotted a feminine sanitary napkin in her pocket. According to her complaint, she was later told that it was in line with company policy.
All the incidents are alleged to have taken place at CCA's South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton, Tenn., one of six facilities currently operated by the for-profit prison giant. CCA, headquartered in Nashville, is the largest private prison operator in the country.
The accounts of the alleged incidents that follow are graphic.
Jane Doe #2, identified in the complaint as a Middle Tennessee grandmother, went to visit an inmate at SCCF in May of 2014. According to the complaint, she had a sealed feminine sanitary napkin in her pocket because she was on her menstrual cycle at the time. When she emptied her pockets at a security checkpoint, the complaint alleges, she was told that she couldn't bring the sanitary napkin into the facility.
"No!" a guard told her according to the complaint. "You have to change in front of us."
According to the complaint, after a guard conducted a "pat-down or frisk search" of the woman in a restroom, another guard entered and told her she had to change her pad in front of them. When the woman protested, the complaint says, the guard responded, "It's company policy. It's not my rule, you have to do it."
The woman was then made to lower her pants and underwear, the complaint alleges, exposing her genitals to a guard standing two or three feet away. She was then made to remove her "obviously bloody sanitary napkin" and hold it up for the guard's inspection.
The complaint says she did not return to visit the prison "for many months" for fear of having to repeat the ordeal.
The next woman, Jane Doe #3, alleges two separate incidents during two separate visits to the facility. In March 2014, the complaint alleges, she was forced to strip and remove a tampon while a guard watched. After that, the complaint says, she urinated in a toilet under the supervision of a guard, who then examined the toilet's contents. Later on during the visit, the complaint alleges that the woman felt the need to use the restroom and was accompanied by a guard, who insisted on inspecting her genitals again.
On a second visit, in April, the woman was accompanied by her three children, then ages 16, 5, and 3. When the woman placed her belongings, including two wrapped sanitary napkins, on a security checkpoint counter and told the guards she was having her period, the complaint says she and her children were ordered into a restroom for a pat-down.
After that, the complaint alleges that the woman was again made to strip down so a guard could inspect her genitals from "a few inches" away, while her three children watched.
The complaint adds that the woman called officials at the facility — including warden Avril “Butch” Chapman and chief of security "John Roe Sullivan" [pseudonym] — to complain about the search, but that her "concerns went unheeded."
Pith has reached out to CCA about these new allegations and will update when we hear back.
After the lawsuit was initially filed in January, a CCA spokesman told WPLN that the company was taking the allegations “extremely seriously," but added "that the company policies on searches and contraband are set by the governments they contract with — in this case, the Tennessee Department of Correction."
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